How to Motivate Reluctant Writers with Daily Writing Prompt Photos
Need Help Motivating Students to Write Every Day? Daily Writing Prompt Photos to the Rescue!
Teacher friends, are you thinking…How can I get my students excited to write? How can I encourage students to LOVE writing?
Here’s the answer…start each morning with crazy, funny, silly & awe-inspiring Daily Writing Prompt Photos projected onto your whiteboard or screen!
Once I switched to photo prompts instead of typical daily morning journal prompts my students’ writing flourished. But these weren’t just any writing prompts, these funny writing prompt photos make students rush to be the first in the room to see what I had picked! 🥰
We all know that setting routines is so important in the classroom. However a lot of those routines may be boring (but obviously very important!). My favorite routine to teach and practice starts the moment students first walk in the door and start their daily journal writing prompts.
My students loved this morning writing routine so much they would peek in my window just to see what today’s writing photo would be. Past students would take the long way around in the morning in order to be able to see what new photos I had found. Students knew they would come in to the classroom every day and they were going to have a reason to smile.
How do you help students who don’t like writing?
Even the most reluctant writers get excited to write when they have a silly photo to jumpstart their ideas. By starting each day with this creative writing and sharing time it helped build not only a community of writers, but a classroom community where students looked forward to walking in the room each day. 📓✏️
Why Should Students Write Every Day?
In an article from Carnegie Learning, “Do students write every day in your classroom? If not, you’re not alone. Research on writing frequency suggests that just a quarter of middle and high school students write for at least 30 minutes a day, a minimum standard set by learning experts.”
The article then goes on to say that when students come to class every day knowing they will be writing it takes the pressure off “getting it right”. Students will instead learn that the best way to become a better writer is to write frequently! By incorporating writing inspiration photos into your daily routine, students learn that writing is a part of life…and one that should be looked forward to, am I right?!
How do you keep students engaged in writing?
The excitement these daily writing prompt photos created in my classroom was outstanding. Here is how I taught my students to use them for writing inspiration. ✏️✏️
#1 I advised my students that they didn’t HAVE to write about the photo but they did have to write in their journal for the first 8-10 minutes of class while everyone was filing in the for the day. I would say 90% of the time they wrote about the picture, but giving them that little bit of freedom really helped in case for some crazy they didn’t want to write about a superhero dog saving the world!
#2 I often encouraged them to write about what happened the moment just before this photo was snapped, who took the photo, or what was going to happen right after this photo? This gave them an easy way to start if they didn’t have any other ideas.
#3 Students’ feeling stuck on ideas? Even making a list of words is writing! Tell students they can write adjectives to describe the photo and see if that jump start their creative juices. Not every photo will inspire every students to write a 5-page masterpiece.
#4 Daily writing prompt photos provide endless writing motivation for students who otherwise might choose the typical whining and complaining that they had “nothing to write about” You can’t say that when there is a picture of a turtle balancing a bubble on its nose on the screen! With ready-to-go writing photo prompts students are creating stories about how that hamster got in the sandwich….or what happened after the giant bubble popped?
Not sure where to start looking for these writing photos?
I have compiled 180 Picture of the Day photos to give you enough for every day of the school year! This Photo of the Day PowerPoint presentation contains 180 funny, silly, cute & crazy visual writing prompt photos that your students will absolutely love. If you need even more, here’s an Extra 100 Photos I recently added to keep the writing fun going.
This is HANDS DOWN one of the best items I’ve ever gotten on TPT. So many amazing and FANTASTIC photos to use for prompts. I use this for emergency sub tub plans and my students love it so much , and the sub teacher always says they are so engaged and they get excited and ask if they’ll be using the photo prompts. Makes my life easier and they get excited to write! thank you!!
– Indeed Positive – TPT Seller
These have changed my classroom writing experience! No more staring at the blank page wondering what to write! So much fun and creativity come out of these photos!
– Brett S.
I noticed as the school year went on, students relied on the picture or video less and less and wrote even more creatively. In general, when it comes to creative writing, let your students know there is no right or wrong and to not worry too much about grammar and spelling as they go. The most important step is to get your words and ideas on the paper and editing can come later! Also, not every story in your journal is going to go through the entire editing process. The act of writing every day naturally improves writing ability and stamina!
Need a new bulletin board idea? Don’t we all! Print out the writing prompt photos your students loved best and hang it up next to your student’s writing. Done and done! Now anyone walking by can enjoy a laugh at a funny photo of a giraffe looking through a window AND read the story of a student who had pancakes with that giraffe on their birthday.
Want to try out 2 weeks of Writing Photos for FREE? Of course you do!
Click HERE for a 14 FREE Photos Sample Pack
These are simply the BEST photo prompts for kids to use as inspiration for creative writing as a photo of the day activity. Use these Picture of the Day for kids as inferencing & creative journal writing inspiration. These pictures can also be used for: Morning Meeting activities, creative writing, inferencing, story starters, to get your kids smiling & more!
My students absolutely love this! I use it for morning work and they cannot wait to come in and see what picture will be on the screen! We share what they wrote during a 15 minute time frame before lunch. They love sharing their writing! Highly recommend!!
– Elizabeth Kingrey
Looking for Even More Writing Motivation for Students? How About Video Writing Prompts?
Every Friday afternoon I would extend on this creative writing fun by showing a short video for inspiration. One of our all-time favorites was “Don’t Go”, a funny (less than 4 minute) video involving a pink alien and a cat. Trust me, you have to see it to love it! That video and many more elementary school age writing videos can be found at Literacy Shed. I prefer showing videos without words when possible because often the students would write their own script for the story! Literacy Shed offers many video all neatly organized into categories. If you are going to use YouTube videos use a site like Video Link to make sure inappropriate ads don’t show before your intended video. (I once accidentally showed a Victoria Secret runway ad before a video to my 3rd grade class. I don’t recommend it!) 😬
I would love to hear how you enjoy this morning writing routine with your students. Email me at happyteacherhappystudents@yahoo.com with any comments or feedback. 💚💙
